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LETTER: Christie's pension rhetoric misleading

Daily Record
7:29 a.m. EDT July 25, 2014

Gov. Chris Christie shakes hands with Kiki Fornito during a visit to Sam's No. 3, a diner in Denver, as Christopher Mouflard looks on during lunch on Wednesday.
ASSOCIATED PRESS New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie shakes hands with Kiki Fornito, during a visit by Christie to Sam's No. 3, a diner in Denver, as Christopher Mouflard, center, joins Fornito for lunch, Wednesday, July 23, 2014. Christie, who made to stop to support GOP gubernatorial contender Bob Beauprez, praised Beauprez and said the Republican Governor's Association, which Christie chairs, will help Beauprez in the lead-up to the November election. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)(Photo: Brennan Linsley, AP)

When will we make Gov. Christie stop pummeling the public worker? In a recent article our governor is quoted as saying "…over the last four years I've paid more money into the public pension system than any governor in New Jersey history."

This may be true — but perhaps not surprising because we face a crisis due to the state underpaying its share into the system for years.

How did we get into this situation? According to PolitiFact, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for its work on political fact checking, Gov. Whitman "reduced payments to the state's pension funds to balance a 30-percent income tax cut enacted after she became governor in 1994. Three years later, Whitman had the state borrow $2.75 billion to deposit in the pension funds to address that liability. The stock market at that time was doing well and the infusion helped create a surplus in the accounts — for a while."

Gov. Corzine talked a lot about the pension problem and started to address it with increased contributions and by requiring that public workers pay more into the pension system. Then the whole country experienced the deep recession of 2008. Corzine proposed that municipalities be allowed to pay only half their pension obligation in 2008/2009 because of the deep recession and the cap on increases in local property caps. Even so, Corzine put more into the pension system than any governor in recent times. Here are the numbers courtesy of PolitiFact:

• Christine Todd Whitman (R) 1995-2001 — $963,934,000

• Donald DiFrancesco (R) 2002 — $563,000

• Jim McGreevey (D) 2003-2005 — $101,424,000

• Richard Codey (D) 2006 — $165,026,000

• Jon Corzine (D) 2007-2010 — $2.17 billion

• Chris Christie 2012-2013 — $1.55 billion

Because of Gov. Christie's gut-level revulsion at the idea of tax increases, his overly optimistic revenue projections that have now failed, he goes after the public worker. Public workers have maintained their end of the bargain, the state should uphold its end. Gov. Christie reminds me of a bully fixated on one target.